Chapter 271: Chapter 113 The Old Dream of a Flickering Lamp_1
The endless snow, like scattered flowers carved from jade, fell unevenly.
The lamps before the window, all extinguished by the northern wind, left the small courtyard deeper in night, as layers of snow piled up on the plum tree branches.
In this silent darkness, a hand reached over and ignited a new lamp with a fire stick.
Soone lit a lamp, illuminating the night of many years later.
Within the warmth of the silver lamp’s glow, brightness flared up instantly, dispersing the dense fog that had just enveloped everything. Slowly, everything inside and outside the window beca clear, and the young man sitting opposite was drawn to the warmth of the light. As his gaze fixed on it, a touch of warmth fell upon him.
Though it was the cold winter month of La, the brightness of the silver lamp seed to bring forth a hint of spring.
Lu Tong stared at Pei Yunng, dumbfounded.
There he was.
He sat right in front of her, his eyes smiling, relaxed and at ease. In an instant, his image overlapped with that of the figure who had appeared amidst the wind and snow at the execution ground in Su Nan City many years ago, the one who had played with the lamp’s wick in an old temple.
He was... that person.
Lu Tong realized in a mont.
He was the man in black she had encountered that snowy day.
The newly lit lamp’s wick flickered, bright and dim. Pei Yunng lowered his head to sip the tea before him, oblivious to the strange expression on Lu Tong’s face.
Lu Tong, however, felt sowhat dazed.
She rembered that heavy snowfall in Su Nan City.
That day, she had reluctantly saved a stranger whose identity was a mystery. It was her first ti acting as a "doctor," her first ti stitching up a wound. It was a day of severe cold, Su Nan City was freezing, and later she fell asleep, waking up only at dawn.
The shadow of the man in black was gone from the decrepit temple, the oil in the lamp on the altar had burnt out. She rose, finding herself covered with an old blanket, still clutching that ancient silver ring in her hand.
Getting up from the ground, she carried her dical box and walked out. Pushing open the temple door, she was t with bright sunlight; the heavy snow had stopped.
She never saw the man in black again.
Like that fleeting snowstorm in Su Nan City, upon waking from the dream, there was no trace left. If not for that silver ring, she would have thought everything had been just an extraordinary and thrilling old dream beneath the clay idol in that broken temple. Everything was hazy and muddled, and yet today, on a similarly quiet and chilly snowy night, the old dream had co to rest once more.
The continuous snowfall, like fluttering spring blossoms, swept romantically across the window silhouette, old lamp flowers cooled to ash, and the new silver vessel warmly exhaled red flas. The past and present intertwined oddly, weaving the years gone by and those to co into that sharp lamp’s glow.
Actually, it hadn’t been many years, just four or five.
Lu Tong stared at the person opposite her.
Why hadn’t she recognized him?
His voice, his teasing tone, his bright, dark eyes—on close inspection, they were very similar to those from years past.
But there were subtle differences. His silver knife, the ferocity hidden beneath his mild appearance, the occasional sternness that flickered in his eyes, all seed different from that day in the old temple.
Besides, he hadn’t recognized her either.
That brief, not-so-pleasant encounter back then was not sothing she had dwelled on: just fellow travelers taking shelter from the snow under the sa roof, briefly pausing before continuing on their separate paths.
If it weren’t for revenge, she would have never co to Shengjing; that encounter from years ago had long been cast out of her mind. In the vast sea of faces, who would have thought they would et again at this mont?
Pei Yunng looked up, eting Lu Tong’s gaze.
He paused and then, inspecting himself with a bit of puzzlent, said, "Why are you looking at
like that?"
"I was just thinking," Lu Tong shifted her gaze away, "that she sought revenge on you like this, and yet you didn’t get angry."
"Just a young girl, and also my savior. If I got angry, wouldn’t that be biting the hand that feeds?" he said, supporting his cheek with one hand while gazing at the tea cup in front of him, "We’re both drifters in this world, after all."
We’re both drifters in this world?
Lu Tong was slightly startled.
She didn’t know what Pei Yunng had gone through in Su Nan back then, but even in those circumstances, she hadn’t harbored much ill will towards the man in black. Perhaps because she thought an assassin who paid his doctor’s fee couldn’t be all that bad.
Pei Yunng looked up at Lu Tong again and said thoughtfully, "Speaking of which, you really do look a bit like her."
Lu Tong’s heart skipped a beat, and she instinctively turned to him.
The young man smiled, "She was just a kid back then, maybe eleven or twelve years old, only this tall." He gestured with his hand, "Probably new to the trade, her dical skills were not as good as yours, but," Pei Yunng paused, "you are much more fierce than she was."
Lu Tong: "..."
When she had t Pei Yunng in Su Nan, she had still been young, not yet learned in the art of poison, her nature yet to darken. Still shedding her childish appearance, still carrying a sense of innocence, in the eyes of Pei Yunng back then, she probably seed like nothing more than a strangely behaving child.
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